I grew up in San Diego, but my family moved away when i was 14 and I’ve rarely been back cause i don’t have people there anymore. This essay takes me back. My dad’s apartment in El Cajon where i would stay with him every other weekend according to custody arrangements with my mother; the produce stand he ran outside of Mary’s One Stop Market in Santee after his addiction ran his engineering business into the ground. (He was mostly self-taught; had only an AA but somehow managed to put together a business that had him in demand and traveling internationally when i was little.) As his addiction progressed he lost the apartment and spent time in a recovery home, then lived in a motel downtown where he worked his final job as a cab driver. My dad died in that motel of a drug overdose when i was 11. Obviously, losing my father in this way and at this age was really shitty and deeply traumatic. But i have sometimes had reason to reflect that, had he continued to live, there might have been more and other kinds of suffering attendant to this. Your essay points to one of the possible alternate timelines: me searching the streets of San Diego for my father, not knowing what kind of state he might be in, having to live with that uncertainty and anguish. Obviously, i wish my father hadn’t died when i was 11. But I can’t say honestly that it what actually happened was a worse outcome than what might have. Thank you for your writing.
Thank you for sharing this. I can’t change my brother. I can’t change anyone sometimes not even myself. But I’ve learned to recognize love even in the midst of heartache and tragedy.
That’s heartbreaking. I think people who haven’t struggled through difficult childhoods and family situations don’t understand just how much fear an adult can live with.
I grew up in San Diego, but my family moved away when i was 14 and I’ve rarely been back cause i don’t have people there anymore. This essay takes me back. My dad’s apartment in El Cajon where i would stay with him every other weekend according to custody arrangements with my mother; the produce stand he ran outside of Mary’s One Stop Market in Santee after his addiction ran his engineering business into the ground. (He was mostly self-taught; had only an AA but somehow managed to put together a business that had him in demand and traveling internationally when i was little.) As his addiction progressed he lost the apartment and spent time in a recovery home, then lived in a motel downtown where he worked his final job as a cab driver. My dad died in that motel of a drug overdose when i was 11. Obviously, losing my father in this way and at this age was really shitty and deeply traumatic. But i have sometimes had reason to reflect that, had he continued to live, there might have been more and other kinds of suffering attendant to this. Your essay points to one of the possible alternate timelines: me searching the streets of San Diego for my father, not knowing what kind of state he might be in, having to live with that uncertainty and anguish. Obviously, i wish my father hadn’t died when i was 11. But I can’t say honestly that it what actually happened was a worse outcome than what might have. Thank you for your writing.
Thank you for sharing this. I can’t change my brother. I can’t change anyone sometimes not even myself. But I’ve learned to recognize love even in the midst of heartache and tragedy.
A journey of Hope. Tugging at your heart strings. Beautifully written.
This is so beautifully expressed. So poignant.
Thank you.
That’s heartbreaking. I think people who haven’t struggled through difficult childhoods and family situations don’t understand just how much fear an adult can live with.
So very true. On the flip side I have learned to live with a tremendous amount of ambiguity and uncertainty. And I keep my mind propped wide open.